Netanyahu unimpressed by reports Iran stops expanding nuclear capacity

President Barack Obama urged skeptical U.S. lawmakers to hold off on imposing further sanctions on Iran, saying that if diplomacy fails to force Tehran to curb its nuclear program, any easing of punitive measures through negotiations could be "ramped back up."
   
"If we're serious about pursuing diplomacy, there's no need to add new sanctions on top of the sanctions that are already very effective," Obama told reporters.
   
Senior members of Congress have expressed distrust of a deal in the making between Iran and world powers that lawmakers  - along with U.S. allies Israel and Saudi Arabia - believe would prematurely ease sanctions on Iran. They instead want to tighten sanctions to pressure Tehran.

For his part, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he was "not impressed" by reports that Iran has stopped expansion of its uranium-enrichment capacity in the past three months.
    
"I am not impressed with reports that we hear that Iran has not expanded its nuclear facilities and the reason for that is they don't need to. They've got enough facilities, enough centrifuges to develop and to complete the fissile material which is at the core of an atomic bomb," Netanyahu said.

This comes as Iran has virtually halted the expansion of its uranium enrichment capacity in the past three months, the U.N. nuclear agency said in a report roughly covering the period since Hassan Rouhani became president.

The quarterly report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) also showed that Iran's stockpile of higher-grade enriched uranium - closely watched by the West and Israel - had risen by about 5 percent to 196 kg since August.
   
But it still remained below the roughly 250 kg needed for a bomb if refined further to weapons grade. Iran rejects Western and Israeli accusations that it is seeking nuclear weapons capability.


REUTERS